Hal returned to the mouth of the cave with one of the lanterns. He could not help shuddering a little as he approached the edge of the precipice, and being of practical mind, he soon found himself speculating on a method of making this point more safe for visitors.
“There ought to be a fence or high railing along here to prevent people from getting too close and falling in,” he told himself. “If Dr. Byrd wants to invite people to visit this cave, he ought to make it safe. I think I’ll suggest this to him—”
His soliloquy was interrupted suddenly when he awoke to the fact that he was running away and did not intend to return to the doctor’s school.
“My, what a fool I am!” he exclaimed. “I think I’m losing my head. Really, I wish I wasn’t running away. I do hate to go. But—but—I’ve got to.”
He flashed his lantern about and began his search for the lost nuggets. He examined the floor and several crevices in the walls for fifteen or twenty minutes, but nothing rewarded his search. How the one nugget he had found got there was as big a mystery as the presence of the bag of souvenirs in the cave had been.
Finally he gave it up and went back to the farther part of the cave and rejoined the other boys. Byron and Walter were gazing upward at Frank and Ferdinand who were climbing up the wall on the right, which inclined like the side of a mountain. Fes carried the lantern.
“Look out, up there; don’t fall, or there’ll be some broken bones, and maybe necks,” warned Hal. “We don’t want any such accidents to-night.”
“We’re all right; just watch us,” answered Frank with his usual bravado.
“Where you going?” inquired Hal.
“As high as we can,” replied Ferdinand “Come on up. It isn’t steep. It’s easy climbing. You couldn’t fall in the dark.”